At least a dozen wrestlers missed meets and tournaments this season due to injuries. Wrestlers were injured in every grade except for a sophomore. A majority of the injuries happened during practice.
“I tore my meniscus; I planted weird, and when I tried to turn, my leg didn’t move, so it just twisted weird,” senior Willy Jon Morales said.
These injuries commonly lead to physical therapy, doctor appointments and braces. Most wrestling injuries made it difficult to continue to compete, but practices were possible.
“I bruised my shoulder; I’ve been in [physical therapy] and rehab and working with the Naval Academy on whether or not I should come back to wrestling,” senior Gabe Kohls said. Kohls is not going to be wrestling this season.
Morales continued to wrestle because of a medical brace that protected his knee. Injured wrestlers practiced in a group separate from the other wrestlers. Some athletes are unable to practice at all due to worse injuries.
“Because we had a lot of injuries this year, we have a group of four or five of us that go out in the weight room,” Morales said. “An assistant coach will come out; they will switch every 30 minutes to give us different workouts we can do when we’re in recovery.”
Some injuries were too bad to continue competing this season, and some members such as Kohls cannot continue competing but did practice.
“I will not be back this season,” Kohls said. “We’ve had the injured people working out in the weight room since I got injured.”
Wrestling injuries vary in severity, some have concussions while others are less extreme. Seniors Devin Carroll and Morales, and sophomores Cale Wills and Brayden Luinstra will compete at state Feb. 28 and March 1.
